5 Everyday Pieces of Clothing With Shocking Health Risks

#2. Bras Mess With Your Sleep and Immune System

Getty

We love bras. We hate bras. They support boobs. They chain boobs. They wildly swing back and forth from sexy godsend to patriarchal titty handcuffs. In 1999, a group of Japanese scientists decided to add a little weight to the negative side of the bra scale by linking the undergarment with abnormal sleeping patterns and hormonal imbalance. In a study from the Department of Environmental Health at Nara Women's University, 10 healthy women were asked to wear a girdle and brassiere for a couple of nights while the scientists tested their saliva, urine and rectal temperature (wait, are we sure this was science?). The study showed decreased levels of melatonin in the participants' saliva while they were wearing the foundation garments. According to the scientists, the skin pressure caused by bras can suppress the production of melatonin, which medical professionals consider "not ... super great."

GettyScience works in mysterious ways.

Melatonin has a crucial role in our sleep patterns, essentially determining when we fall asleep and wake up. Among its many other jobs, it also helps control the menstrual cycle and the immune system. Melatonin's duties, and therefore the implications of screwin' with said duties by wearing a breast-bag, are wide reaching. But to put it simply, wearing a bra while sleeping lowers your melatonin levels, which then messes up your sleep, makes you sick and interferes with your period. Also, that wire will totally poke you in the side when you flip over, and nobody likes that.

Getty"I'm actually used to annoying tiny pokes in my back when I'm trying to sleep."

#1. Neckties Can Damage Your Eyesight

Getty

Thanks to Mad Men, the suit-and-tie look has been making a rocketing comeback in men's fashion. But just like everything else that seems awesome about the '60s, it turns out that wearing neckties secretly sucks. Specifically, wearing a tie can put you at risk for glaucoma.

Glaucoma is one of the most common eye diseases in the world and can lead to permanent blindness unless it's treated early. Its primary cause is increased pressure in the eye, which in turn can be caused by obstructed blood flow to and from the head. Like if, say, someone tied a fashionably striped little silk noose around your neck and strangled you with it for seven or eight hours every day.

GettyAt least regular nooses make you look like a criminal badass.

A 2003 study published in the British Journal of Ophthalmology asked 40 men, half completely healthy and half suffering from glaucoma, to tighten a necktie to "slightly uncomfortable" levels for three minutes, then measured their intraocular pressure. Sixty percent of the glaucoma sufferers and 70 percent of the healthy group showed increased pressure in their eyes. We're not even talking Hulk Hogan headlock levels here -- just "slightly uncomfortably tight," which describes every single tie we've ever worn.

It turns out that wearing a necktie very gently obstructed the patients' jugular vein, which returns blood from the head to the heart. At best, long-term pressure rises like this can lead to being misdiagnosed with glaucoma by your doctor, and you'll have to do that super annoying air-puff-in-the-eye test every few months for the rest of your life. Of course, at worst, it could lead to permanent damage to the retina. And then you wouldn't even be able to see how absolutely bitchin' you look in that suit. That's like the definition of tragedy right there.

Cezary Jan Strusiewicz is a freelance English-Japanese-Polish translator, tour guide and writer. If you pay him, he will write words for you. Contact him at c.j.strusiewicz@gmail.com.